Parallel Paradox
by Scheherazad
Summary: A newly risen Awoken-Guardian wakes up in a strange new world. Away from home and far from the Traveler with only her Ghost for company, vague memories of the past for knowledge and the traveler's light to aid her.
1. Brilliant 1-a

[…eyes up Guardian…]

Awareness came to me suddenly, and I woke with a startle – rising to a stand with jerky, quick motions that nearly had me fall to the ground and onto my back. My body felt raw. The feel of fabric… leather of some sort – against my skin felt like a blanket of fire. Not quite burning but overheating my body where it should have provided warmth and protection.

There was something in my mouth. Something clogging my throat from taking breath properly and backed up at the back of my throat making bile rise from my empty stomach. I was choking on it I realized when my vision started to blur.

Desperately, I heaved and clawed at my throat. Pounded my fist against my chest and tried to make myself gag to no avail. Whatever it was, parried any and all attempts I made at clearing my throat.

Hoping against hope to clear my throat of the obstruction, I fell to my knees and rested my shoulders against the nearest platform in sight – a small mound of smooth-cut rock. One hand fell to the cold, and wet ground – it had recently rained, I realized, though I hardly cared much for it - and the other was against my neck – my grip tight against my throat as I massaged my windpipe to somehow stimulate my pathways clear.

It took a while, but my effort was rewarded… rather, I felt a dull impact against my back and an encouraging voice, telling me to 'hang on'.

The 'thing' dislodged from my throat and I gagged. I spat it out on the ground before me, and it landed with a 'ting' against a small rock platform jutting out the ground.

Bile rose from my belly and pooled to the base of my mouth. The concoction of stomach acid and heaven-knows-what tasted like warm gruel against my tongue, with a bitterness to it like fruit-rind and a viscosity like cold bone-soup all at once.

It was disgusting.

[…breathe. You're fine now…] – the voice urged me, and I did just that. I took an uneasy breath – in and out, centering myself – and pushed down the foul crud in my mouth back to my stomach where it belonged.

I looked to the ground, in front of me, and beheld the thing I'd just spat out.

I reached for it.

It was so small… and flat… larger than my thumb, yet small enough to fit in the small of my palm.

I turned it around some, over and under, then flicked it through my fingers rather deftly. It looked like a coin – felt close to one too, but the hexagonal shape and plastic surface said otherwise. The lines of gold against the green board suggested a micro-chip of some sort – a closer look revealed the words 'MIDA' etched in miniscule at the top.

'…why was it in my mouth?' the thought occurred to me distantly.

There was something about 'it'… the token I'd spat out that tickled at my mind.

A memory, and a distant voice shouting at me something along the lines of 'hide' bubbled its way to the surface. It slipped away from grasp the moment I reached for it.

Taking the token in hand, I wiped it clean using the edges of a worn long coat… one I don't remember putting on and pocketed it in one of the breast pockets of the under-armor.

[…ha~, you're alive Guardian…] - the voice announced with glee, the sound startling me from my momentary distraction and pulling my gaze to its source – hovering above me and around me in a slow orbit.

[…it worked. I almost lost you to a choking hazard, but It worked. I can't believe it…]

It was a man's voice – not deep, but boyish.

I looked up, expecting to find a young man and found someone or something else – small and not at all human.

The speaker, I discovered, was a drone.

No smaller than my fist. Comprised of metallic pyramid-shaped component-parts that shifted, turned and compressed unto a mechanical eye/core to form a roughly cube-shaped whole made of midnight-blue metal decorated with shimmering white flecks and lined with silver along the edges.

It bristled with faint white light, and the surface of its 'skin' twinkled like a starry night.

It was rather gorgeous.

[…you don't know how long I've been looking for you…] – the drone said, flying around and about excitedly, leaving trails of white specks in its wake.

Composing itself, the drone stopped pacing and flew to my front – hovering at just about eye level and introduced itself – […I'm a ghost. Your Ghost now, actually and you have been dead for a very, very long time.]

"…dead!" I startled, my voice weak and trembling. My throat felt parched, and atrophied… as though I hadn't spoken in years – which would make sense, since I was apparently dead.

I was skeptical.

Startled by my outburst, the drone back away a few paces before flying back over.

[…yes. Dead…] – it answered, its voice sounding modulated, […By now, you will have noticed a blank in your memories. No name, nothing – just information without context… skills and such. Remnants from your past life…]

"…that…" I made to protest but choked before I could speak. I found no words to put to voice, and true to the Ghost's words, no memories either to draw from and prove the Ghost otherwise.

"Have I really been dead," I asked, my voice low and raspy – though slowly getting better. The more I spoke, the more my voice adjusted. "If so, then how am I here?… clearly alive!"

[… that'll be my doing. I resurrected you…] – the Ghost stated, matter of factly, and proudly too, somehow radiating an aura of smugness with the pyramid-shard directly above the eye/core raised a bit… kinda like how one would their eyebrows.

"…ok, Einstein," I laughed just a little at the display. It was adorable. "How did you resurrect me?"

[… hmm, Einstein. I like the sound of that. Now, where have I heard that name… searching memory core… parsing… entry found{… European physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of pre-Golden-Age physics…}…]

"Focus, Ghost!" I said, snapping my fingers in front of the Ghost's eye/core which blinked, exiting the trance it had been in and rose just a little higher and projected a reply.

[…Call me Einstein…]

"…ok Einstein. How did you resurrect me?"

[…why, with Light of course…] – he explained, nothing.

"Are you being obtuse on purpose?"

[…yes, actually. I've heard from my fellows that a little humor helps alleviate post-resurrection stress…] – the Ghost, self-proclaimed Einstein, replied rather bluntly and… I couldn't help but agree to his method and 'fellow's' logic.

There wasn't so much humor in this method, just a distraction that worked and helped… some. I wasn't feeling the panic or existential dread one would expect to experience upon finding out they were, for all intent and purpose, dead to the world and had been for a 'very, very long time' – just an eerie calm and exasperation.

"You're a smug little shit you know that, right?"

Seeing the look on my face, the Ghost brightened up and poised itself in a static hover.

[…love you too Guardian. Now that you're calm - arguably, and not about to die, again, of a spontaneous heart-attack, I will endeavor to answer your question. 'Obtuse' though it may have been, my answer was as simple and as complex as I could make it.]

I motioned for 'him' to go on. He flew just over my shoulder, his eye/core facing the distance. Small mechanical noises emanated from his frame as he scanned for something in the horizon… all the while, he regaled me with an explanation.

[…I resurrected you using the Traveler's gift of Light. The process is what wiped your memories clean. Its…complicated, yet not… you must understand that your body was a desiccated husk when I found you – near-perfectly preserved with a not-insignificant portion of the brain intact. I had to work with what I had. Were you less – dehydrated – then maybe…]

"…that's fine," I said. There wasn't much room to complain. My choice was either that or staying dead, and I think I prefer being alive… even as an empty template. "It sounds like a fair price to pay for a second chance at life, I think."

Accepting my assurance, he flew back to my front and faced me.

[…glad you're understanding. I ignited your spark with the Light I carried for you, then broke down your husk to its base elements, and let my programming do its thing as I rebuilt your body from the ground up – atom by atom, molecule by molecule - with some added enhancements. After, I clothed you in a set of spare robes I kept within…]

I nodded, dumbly and looked down to myself – inspecting my apparently 'reborn' self.

"Have you got a mirror I could borrow?" I asked.

[…I'll do you one better. Hold out your hand. Any hand will do…]

I did as asked and held out my dominant left-hand. The ghost flew to my hand and rested in the small of my palm as it shifted its component-parts, all the while rising to a hover in my hand.

Light burst from its eye/core. Lines upon lines of hard light appeared, tracing faint images in thin air, racing frantically as they refracted, slowly forming a three-dimensional projection of a woman.

Me.

The woman, I realized, was me. I almost didn't recognize myself, but… I guess enough of my ID… sense of self remained intact.

I ran a hand through my hair, which if the projected avatar was to be believed… and I had no reason to doubt the Ghost so far, had remained unchanged and was a shock of white and cut short to an undercut. I trailed a finger down, running it along my chin and jaw – striking features both, chiseled and square respectively – then further down to my arms and legs.

I felt strange… discomforted… taller, and my arms had better each than I thought I should have had but I didn't know enough to tell. The feeling of discomfort faded away just as fast as it appeared.

I turned my ministrations to my bared arm, trailing fingers against the flickering ambers of gold light that rose like solar flares against my sky-blue skin.

"Is this… Light?" I asked the Ghost, grabbing hold of an ember with a pinch of my gloved hand, and letting it dance from thumb to finger.

The ghost 'nodded' and left me to my ministrations.

I snuffed the 'light' out with another pinch of the fingers – a surprisingly easy task – and turned my focus back on myself. My chest felt heavier, and my eyes glowed like the glare of the sun. The chest bit, I didn't mind – not one bit, but the eyes… the color was wrong.

"What did you do to my eyes?" I asked, "they're supposed to be green, not… what color even is that? Gold, yellow. Why are they glowing too?"

[…I'm surprised you remember that…] – he muttered, then spoke – […I don't know why your eyes changed color. I can only speculate that your affinity for Solar is so strong it affects your physical body – maybe…]

That explained absolutely nothing. All I've heard so far has been buzz-word after buzz-word.

"What's Solar?"

[…that will take a while to explain… even then, it's best you discover for yourself…]

"…you don't know how to explain it do you?" I hazarded a guess.

[… - …] - a correct guess too.

The ghost sputtered – an unexpectedly organic reaction – and spoke - […I don't have time to explain such simple matters when we have much more pressing issues at hand that need addressing…]

"…right?" I was skeptical, but I asked anyway, "like what?"

[…where do you think we are Guardian…]

"Wales!" I answered immediately, the words spilling from my lips unbidden.

Wales… It came to me slowly, but I remembered enough to know that I once called it home, in my past life, maybe – before my literal and figurative rebirth. Something didn't feel right though. It was cold, yes, but not Wales cold – my body could just tell, strangely enough.

[…look around you. Really look…]

I did.

I hadn't done so before now, and I was regretting it. Tunnel vision had blinded me, I suppose – so concerned was I with finding out how I came to be, I didn't bother question where I was.

Lack of spatial awareness was going to be the death of me It seemed.

Regardless, I looked to the ground – a little closer now, and with a scrutinizing gaze.

It was red – a bright unearthly red that had been dulled by the rain to make it darker, fooling my eyes into thinking it was normal until just now. That was, on its own, a concerning revelation. The amount of iron one would need to infuse into the soil to make it this color was… well, I didn't have my handy multi-tool to work it out, but I knew it was a lot.

'…multi-tool?'

The rocks were all smooth cut at the top, jagged around the edges and perfectly curved in other places. The outcrop in front of me looked like a strange bismuth farm. Vegetation grew from the ground – despite my common sense telling me it shouldn't, not with enough iron to make soil literally red. Little stalks of violet grass, growing in patches, spaced out feet apart from the other, that jutted fro the ground, continually swaying to an unseen wind.

I pulled one from the ground and inspected its veins. The strange patterns on the leaf had caught my eye more than anything else – more even that the thought that I was on another planet.

"…non-symmetrical?"

The veins on the grass stalks didn't run in straight vertical patterns from stem to tip. No, they were horizontal. Instead of one long mid-rib in the middle that ran from stem to tip, the stalk had multiple ribs – caged ribs that ran horizontally with lateral veins that ran vertically.

"…that's impossible!" I said, my shock quite apparent.

Past me was a scholar of some sort, apparently – with knowledge of agriculture, among many skills in her repertoire – engineering and physics chief among them. A repertoire that told me enough to know that what I was seeing was impossible… no, not impossible… inefficient organic design.

'Failed terraforming efforts' came to mind for some reason when my thoughts lingered on trying to discern the phenomena with my inherited knowledge.

Almost hesitantly, I turned to the sky and promptly fell on my rear in shock.

The sky was green… and it was night too, so the stars were visible. The black of space against the green sky was jarring but made for quite the sight.

If I had a sextant, I might have been able to tell which star-system was which, but I knew enough to know that the starry-night before was strange – the lack of outstanding constellations and the northern star made that apparent.

Most shocking, however, were the three moons in orbit. No such planet existed in the Solar System… at least not one I could remember. The blanks in my memory were starting to grate on me.

"Toto. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

[…Einstein, please… and you're right Dorothy, we are nowhere near Kansas. Kansas would imply we're on Earth... in the solar system... in the Milky Way… in our home dimension even…] – Einstein said, speaking the last part slowly, drawing it out hesitantly.

"…oh!" was my only reaction.

It was no doubt a strange occurrence, and reason to panic. Not for me though. No, it just didn't click in my mind as something to be concerned about.

[…'oh' - that's it? Guardian have some urgency…] – he chastised, looming over me with his frame shaking and nearly pressing down on my face.

Was that homesickness I saw in him.

"Sorry," I apologized, waving my hand as I pushed his slight frame back, "I just don't remember enough to… I don't know… care. I mean, is a place really a home if you've never been there… rather, if you don't remember ever being there."

My words struck something in him, and he paused in his fretful flying.

I fidgeted in place, nervous and continued, "…you said it yourself. Whatever you did to bring me back, wiped me clean." being an effectively blank slate of a person was jarring… with no experience or context to draw from, everything was numb and dulled to an extent.

"According to you," I started, slowly and deliberately, "I've been dead for a long time. I understand that, by now, enough time has passed that I have no one who remembers me or waiting for me."

I hadn't asked how long I'd been dead. I could only assume it was a long stretch. Part of me doesn't want to know.

[…that… is fair. I ju-I just miss my home…] – he said, his voice low and forlorn.

"I-if you want, I'll help you find your way back," I suggested… no, I promised, trying and hopefully succeeding in my attempt to console him.

[…much appreciated, but I don't think we can. Had you been listening Guardian; you would've heard me say we're not in our… my home dimension. It's not a matter of distance or time…]

"I heard you well enough. We can still try anyway… speaking of, how did that happen anyway?" I asked.

[…it's a long story…]

"Make it short then."

[…right, well. As you know, I am a ghost. Your ghost… and I have been looking for you for almost five centuries. It's what I was made for. Understandably, I was desperate to find you and in my desperation, a man… thing… being in white approached me with a lucrative offer. An offer I accepted, though I remained skeptical…]

"Ever heard of Faust and Mephistopheles?" I interjected, "I know you read. You understood my Wonderful Wizard reference," which begged the question of why I could remember that, and not my name.

[…you're an insufferable little shit you know that, Guardian…]

I blew a kiss his way and prompted him to continue.

[…as I was saying before you rudely interrupted – I was presented an offer. Accept the indeterminate deal and finally put an end to my centuries-long search. I accepted, of course – I was desperate. I don't regret that, I got to meet you – my lesser half…]

"…lesser half, my ass. What did the man get in exchange?" I asked, curious.

[…nothing. He opened a rift, led me to you, and told me something along the lines of 'have the adventure of a lifetime' then left…]

"Just like that?"

[…just like that…]

"…that seems a little random," I opined.

Einstein didn't reply, just made a little expressive motion with his component-parts – a shrug, I think, and left it at that. I wanted to press for more, of course – the whole situation was strange. Strange beyond strange, and it piqued my curiosity something fierce.

I chose to let it be for now.

"…so… what now?" I asked.

[…now, Guardian – we find us a way out of this strange planet and some way back to earth if we can…]

That sounded like a capital idea, and I made my thoughts on the matter known, though a question remained.

"How?"

[…we fly there, obviously. I brought a ship…]

"Has anyone told you that you're a smug little shit."

[…and proud of it. Chop-chop Guardian, time's wasting. There's a storm approaching, and you don't want to be in the open when it hits…]

* * *

Disclaimer: I own nothing


	2. Brilliant 1-b

Curious, I'd asked Einstein why it was he'd been looking for me – did he know who I was before I died. People… or drones/ghosts in his case, didn't spend centuries looking for just anyone.

He laughed at me first, boisterously, then answered me thus.

[…I never knew you in life…] – Einstein spoke, filling the silence that ensued as we walked across the alien landscape of violet vegetation patches and smooth cut rocky outcrops, [... your first life anyway. You died on a battlefield long before my time…]

"No... I don't think so," I cut in – adding in my own theory, "Soldier... no. But I can fight, I think... well enough. I was a researcher, maybe… an engineer of some sort. I don't know how well I'd fare with a gun in hand, but uh… I'm pretty sure I can design and make one. I have knowledge and skills… none of which Is stuff I remember learning but would be appropriate for the task."

In our short journey across the red soil scape, we had passed no bodies of water or any signs that suggested the existence of one as we walked – I took note and continued onwards. Einstein didn't share in my excitement and showed no interest in our surroundings, and at some point, he'd insisted we walk a little bit faster… I'd rebuffed him then, my curiosity getting the better of me and lingered just a way behind him as I inspected all that we passed by.

My pockets were lined heavily with all the rock samples I'd collected – red rocks, blackish-red rocks, crystalline shards sometimes and a gemstone I'd dislodged from a distant outcropping we'd passed by… it looked like bismuth if bismuth fractals grew in circular formations, not inwardly folding squares. It was fascinating to look at.

Though lacking in equipment, I was intent on studying them later when I get the chance – for now, we walked to safety.

[…huh. Wonders that. With all the rocks you keep collecting like a child I would've thought you a Titan. They aren't a terribly smart lot, but even I can be wrong sometimes. You're a warlock then…]

"A warlock?" I asked – some new unexplained terminology, hoping for an actual explanation this time, not more buzz words.

[…Hunter, Titan, and Warlock. The three schools of Light most Guardians fall under. Hunters are scouts – masters of gun and dagger who prowl the wilds, and Titans are defenders – the swords and the shields of the City. Warlocks are scholars and battlemages – their greatest weapons aren't steel or lead, but knowledge and their curiosity for more…]

"Poetic," I commented – the way the schools formed was very much like table-top game classes… none of which I could put a name to, but I got that impression none-the-less.

[…Indeed, and in the words of Ikora Rey – 'only warlocks understand true power, and true power lies in understanding.' I have a primer aboard the ship we can parse through later if you'd like…]

"I'll hold you to that," a good read and some food, hopefully, sounded divine right about now. This whole day has been a spinning wheel of revelations and emotion. I was hoping to use the distraction to decompress and get my head on straight before moving on… where-ever I decide to go.

"… now, what can you tell me about this Traveler you keep referencing?"

[…that I can do. The traveler is what brought us together, and its gift is what binds us. It was discovered on Mars centuries ago, and its arrival heralded a Golden Age in humanity's history. Cities were built around it, Mercury was terraformed thanks to the knowledge it gifted, and human lifespan tripled… disease was eradicated, and famine became all but a thing of the past. When all was said and done, humanity looked to the stars and knew it was their destiny to go out amongst them and explore. To bask under the light of other stars…]

Einstein had settled in my palm again, his eye/core facing upwards as he projected the image of the 'Traveler' – a celestial sphere of pure white, resting above the ocean of an earth-like world with red lush forests and blue rivers running through it like veins under blacklight… Mercury, I recognized it.

It wasn't unlike this strange world we were on, I noticed – noting the similarity in coloration.

His oration continued, voice lowering as he changed the tune of the tale from the hopeful recounting it had been seconds ago to something more morose.

[…unfortunately, the Traveler had an enemy…]

He projected a swarm of pyramids encroaching upon an earth-like planet.

[…A primordial darkness that had hunted it for untold Millennia across time and space. To make a long story short, this enemy found the Traveler and a battle was fought – humanity suffered unfathomable losses, the Exos surfaced and the Awoken were born…]

It was a somber tale. One that I listened to intently as we walked and crossed the last few outcrops on the path.

[…In the end, the Traveler prevailed, somewhat succeeding in driving the Darkness away for a time but was wounded in the aftermath… fatally wounded. And so, in its dying breath, the Traveler created us, Ghosts, to give unto humanity…and awoken such as yourself, its final gift of Light so that they may continue the fight against the Darkness in its absence…]

Part of me was glad to not be in his… 'home-dimension' as he put it - away from the cosmic conflict of Good vs Evil, Traveler against Darkness and other immediate threats, no doubt.

'Does that make me a bad person… or a sensible one?' I wondered. To be fair, I had no stakes in a war I didn't know a thing about.

I was still going to help him return to his home… mine too apparently, of course… I owed it to him to do at least that for resurrecting me.

I cleared my throat and made to say something when suddenly a slight wind picked up – coming from my right side – and proceeded to buffet me with a coarse breeze that left scratches on my cheeks and nearly blinded me.

[…Dust-Storm closing in Guardian. We'll talk later when we're not getting sanded down by dust. We're not too far. I left the ship in that cave over there…] – Einstein cut his recounting short, and projected a line of Light, pointing straight ahead towards an outcropping of red-rock with an entrance at the mouth. I hadn't seen it on account of my getting sand-blasted in the eye by extra-terrestrial weather… that, and the fact the planet had absolutely no geographic variation to it.

If it wasn't for Einstein leading the way, I would have been lost by now.

Everything looked the same – and all seemed to be following the exact same formation.

There was a natural pattern to the landscape – as nature won't to do, of course. Seemingly caused by erosion – extreme erosion at that. Neat, symmetrical sediment littered the strange earth – the effect closer to machine-sandblasting than the natural wear and tear of erosion. It made every rocky outcropping jagged in such a way they formed a strange symmetry that fooled the eyes into seamlessly blending them together into every other one.

Despite being of different sizes – and color sometimes, they still managed to appear like-enough to fool the senses.

It was as jarring and truly alien as the green sky and pure red soil.

I covered my face, biting the hiss of pain when I brushed against the sand-scratched mark and picked up the pace, running for the mouth of the cave to safety.

* * *

**Ghost Stories# Einstein Recalls**

Bright.

It was the only word. The only, and most fitting descriptor he could think of to describe the man before him.

Bleached white undershirt, white leather jacket, white track-pants, and exercise shoes. His ensemble remained unmarked by the terrain and untouched by the swampy Marshlands of the Dead Zone. To make matters even stranger, his skin was equally as white as the rest of him – paper-white pale as opposed to the tan of most earth-born. It made him look as though someone… something had bleached the color out of him and left only the black in his hair and green in his eyes.

The sight was as obnoxious as it was offending to his optics.

He adjusted the glare filter and ignored the man. Another civilian from the farm in over their heads most likely. They'll be dead in hours. Poked full of holes by Fallen shock staffs and all his 'nice' whites salvaged by the scavengers for scraps and material for etheric conversion - both nourishment and drug.

He felt no obligation to save him and flew away. Proximity to the man would only paint a target on his back. Honestly, who wore such bright colors in Fallen territory. The guilt he expected to feel was a distant thing - no, he reasoned, this was natural selection at its finest.

Unfortunately, the man had other plans. He loomed over the Ghost and smiled… brightly.

"You're a curious little machine," he said, poking at the Ghost's frame curiously, "Tell me, what brings you to this stretch of land… so far from your Celestial machine mother."

The man's words washed over the Ghost. All of them, except for the last.

'Celestial Machine Mother.'

That was a new one to him. He'd never heard the Traveler referred to as such.

As interesting as it was, the Ghost chose to ignore the man further. The man seemed intent on following the Ghost. To dissuade the man, the ghost dispelled itself… concealed behind a veil of light and void, then made to fly the opposite way.

A hand closing in on its shell gave the ghost pause as it then stopped… though only in surprise. It was cloaked, and covered in void-light - the hand around its shell should have either melted or shriveled to a husk as the man was drained of his light.

Despite that, the man was fine – impossibly untouched and unscathed. Better than fine, even. He was smiling, brightly.

He cupped his hand around the Ghost's shell and brought it to eye level with himself.

The ghost bristled, and glowed, […Let me go… or else…] it warned.

The man laughed, then let go after he settled.

"You're looking for someone aren't you?" the Bright man asked.

The ghost didn't reply, just leveled an impassive glare at the man and prepared to fly away with speed… enough to cover the stretch of forest in a breath.

"I can take you to them you know."

The man's words struck the ghost. Its eye was raised, skeptical, but it hadn't flown away, interested.

[…I doubt that…] it said.

"Have faith. Nothing is Beyond me," the man said with a brilliant smile, "for a price, anything is possible."


	3. Brilliant 1-c

Einstein's ship – the one he'd hidden inside the cave – was a thing of beauty.

It was shaped like an arrowhead, painted a clean pure-white with a black tinted view-port at the front – near the tip of the arrow; with what looked to be a thruster at the back… a single one, not multiple. The thruster took up most of the space, and I imagined the inside to be cramped – with… at an estimate…only enough space for a cockpit, a sleeping quarters of some sort, a lounging room and a cargo bay.

It looked to have been built for speed and nothing else.

It also looked brand new. Barely used at that.

[…We should get inside…] – Einstein said, his slight frame pushing against the small of my back as he urged me forward, toward the ship and away from the mouth of the cave.

The dust-storm was still a way away from our position – kilometers away from the looks of it, but he didn't seem to want to take any chances… I had just been hit by a stray wind, who was to say another wont find purchase on me again.

An entrance door popped open from the side of the ship, unfurling to form a flight of stairs that led into a wide and empty area at the heart of the ship… the lounging area I guessed. I took an uneasy step and scaled my way in. The sight that greeted was one of… a home unlived in – a sparse, wide expanse of room that I couldn't help but liken to an incomplete puzzle, with vital pieces missing.

The missing piece, I realized, was the lack of furnishing.

The only thing that passed for decoration were sealed caches that lined the walls, and the light fixtures above and below.

[…this is it, Guardian. Your ship. An Echo-Zero class wayfarer, retrofitted with a warp-drive and trans-matter projector…] – he said, the stairs behind us retracting and closing as he then flew to my front, his component parts flared wide in a show of… pride and excitement.

"…mine?"

[…unlike my fellows, I prepared for your awakening and never left the tower unequipped. I took it with me when I knew I'd be finding you and stocked up on materials. It's not much, but we have enough glimmer to last us a lifetime or build another ship if we had to…] – he replied, flying closer to my face, just above the now dry scratch to my left, inspecting it.

'…glimmer?'

[…you're hurt Guardian…] - his voice was soft and filled with worry.

The 'mark' felt like, and most likely was just a scratch, one that would heal in time – not something to fuss over.

"Don't worry about it. It'll heal. The worst I got was some sand in my eye, so just…," I made to assure him but stopped short when I noticed him glowing faintly of Light, directing a small yet wide beam of it at the affected area.

Sight returned to my eye almost instantly as I was healed, and I felt the mark around it close then fade to nothingness.

"… you can heal?"

[…No, Guardian. I can recreate your body from a single atom… of course I can heal you…] – he snarked, raising one of his component bits like one would a brow and leaned a little to the side – a slight to his axis, looking rather unamused.

'A single atom?' I doubted that. An exaggeration most likely, but one rooted in truth.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious that he can heal. He did resurrect me from… a desiccated husk as he put it. I feel like my own reaction would have been the quite similar had I been asked a question like that. It was strange, I noted, how alike we were… how easily we seemed to fall into our strange back and forth dynamic… how easily we connected. Maybe that's why he found me.

I backed off, arms raised in good humor and made for the lounging area and took a seat atop one of the sealed caches… the one that glowed blue, not the green ones.

[…make yourself comfortable. Explore the ship maybe… I need to plot our departure from this weird planet…] – his voice trailed as he made for the cockpit, leaving me to my lonesome.

I took him up on the offer and explored the ship.

The first place I visited was the sleeping quarters. A single room just beyond the lounging area with a wide-open space and four bunk beds along the walls, an empty set of cabinets for clothes and other such things, and a washing closet behind one of the walls.

The ship was much larger inside than it appeared from the outside, I found.

There we more rooms inside than I'd initially thought… four more than my estimate. The dimensions of said rooms were off as well – taking up more space than there reasonably should have been in a ship of this size.

'Dimensional compression?' I hazarded a guess and reasoned to myself that if 'Light'… literal space magic was real, then such fantastic technology was too.

I would need to take something apart to verify the ludicrous theory, but for now… I put it down in a mental 'to-do' list for later and moved on to the next area.

An engine room sat adjacent to the cargo bay where I found even more caches, stacked high atop each other haphazardly with various strange equipment stored besides, as well as an armory and a workbench.

The armory was empty save for a fabricator in the far corner – connected to a cache of glowing blue cubes. Weapons were the last thing on my mind at the moment but looking at the fabricator gave me ideas… blueprints floating to the fore of my mind – of modular designs that slotted together to form a multi-purpose tool of war, filled with various sensorial apparatus and so much more.

I left the armory, intent on returning as I made for the workshop. Marking it down on my ever-growing list of things to look into later.

The door ahead opened as I approached, and the scent of books and leather wafting hit me as I neared. I rushed for the door and walked into… quite frankly, the most interesting room aboard the ship.

The room looked to be cross between a library and a lab.

I may not remember what home was anymore, but this place… this room… it felt like home.

A smile wormed its way to my face as I trailed a finger along the edges of the bookcases, glass and metal apparatus with various computer terminals hooked to each desk.

[…Guardian…] – Einstein's voice echoed from above, speaking through the ship-wide announcement speakers, […drop by when you're finished touring. It's probably nothing, but I'd prefer a second set of eyes on this…]

I emptied my pockets, stocking the contents neatly along the bench in the center of the workshop – all the samples I'd picked up along the way.

For a moment I considered leaving the microchip that had been inside my mouth when I woke up, but decided against it and kept it inside the front pocket of the spare robes Einstein had clothed me in. I was, for some reason, reluctant to part with it.

"I'm just about done here. On my way," I replied, calling out, though I doubted he heard me and doubled back for the cockpit.

I found Einstein's frame resting inside a caddy beside the pilot's side – one that was perfectly sized and shaped for his little body – as he twitched his component parts this way and that, the motions interacting with the display terminals above, beside and in front.

[…could it be… no, impossible. False readings… nothing but radio waves bouncing around the iron-sandstorm outside… not this far out beyond the Solar system…] – he was, for a lack of a better descriptor, mumbling to himself as he blinked furiously, screens changing and values shifting with each blink.

"You called!" I said, slipping into the sparse cockpit.

[… Guardian. Take a look at this…] – he prompted, directing my attention to one of the screens above head.

I took a seat next to his caddy, in what I can only assume to be the pilot's seat and prompted the holographic screen closer to myself. The interface was strangely intuitive and took almost no time to operate… not with any degree of skill, but enough to understand what's what.

The screen blinked and numbers filtered to the front. I understood some of what I saw – namely the distance values, the angles and the energy readings, all of which lend themselves well to whatever it is I studied in my past life.

The rest was alien to me. Most of it, quite literally being numbers with values and values without meaning.

"I have no idea what I'm looking at," I confessed.

The little ghost rolled its eye and blinked once more, speaking.

[…about a minute ago, the ship's sensors picked up a set of tight-beam transmissions… something that should be impossible due to the nature of both out arrivals in this world. I had previously assumed us stranded in an unoccupied area of Deep Space, but now I-I'm not quite sure…] – he said, [… this suggests signs of civilization. Maybe stray data packets from a nearby satellite… or it could just be light from the local moons bouncing off the storm outside…]

I gave the values a once over, and… though I still understood nothing I was reading, I noticed a pattern. A pattern that no dust-storm or moonlight could have possibly created.

Too uniform.

Too… intelligent. Lines of intelligently designed code flowed like falling sand down the monitor, written in an indecipherable language and nonsensical syntaxes.

I got the gist of what he was trying to convey. He could at least try to be more direct, I felt, but I didn't begrudge him for it. Our 'partnership'… sponsorship… whatever we had was new and he was trying to conform to a dynamic he wasn't used to.

Fortunately, we were of one mind in the matter, and our thoughts aligned.

It called for an investigation.

"You want to check it out?" I suggested.

[…I would very much appreciate that…] – he replied, then muttered, in a voice so low… muffled even more by the whirring and beeping his frame made, such that I almost didn't hear him - […hope we find some clues that could help us return to the Traveler…]

I didn't share in his homesickness, but I felt for him all the same.

"For your sake, I hope so too," I said, a hand over his frame in reassurance.

Newly reborn as I was, with no memory of life past the two hours I'd been awake, meeting this Traveler thing sounded like as good a life-goal as any… not like I had much else to do.

"Plot the course and fly us away when you can."

[…will do, Guardian. Just need to wait for the dust storm to subside – can't leave orbit otherwise…]

He seemed eager to leave planet-side. I didn't mind either way – it was something to do at least. While he waited, I decided to resume my exploration of the ship. I rose to a stand and slipped away from the seat, making for the exit.

"I'll be in the workshop if you need me."

[…Of course, you go look at your rocks. Don't worry about me, I'll just do all the actual work meanwhile…]


	4. Brilliant 1-d

I braced myself into the pilot's seat, my hands tight against the rails to either side of me and back firmly pressed against the seat as I was pushed back by the G-forces of planetary exit.

My stomach lurched, and the ship lifted off.

Bile rose from my belly, and I groaned pitifully. I hadn't eaten anything since my awakening, and that had been hours ago – nor had I had drunk anything for that matter. My stomach was trying to expel something, and I had nothing within to expel. The sensation felt as though my stomach was collapsing in on itself. Had my past-self deigned to learn of biology, I might have known what I was suffering. As it was, all I could do was seat back and look out the window at the super-cell made of iron-sand pass through and disappear in the horizon.

…too think I had been in the middle of that just hours ago.

It was a magnificent sight. Humbling and terrifying all at once.

Einstein in his caddy pushed the ship further up, breaking through cloud cover – clouds of alkaline gases at that, and more layers of atmosphere until we neared the stratosphere.

[…breaching stratosphere in five…] – he counted down, and I felt the resistance against the ship as the planet's gravity asserted itself upon, trying to pull us back to 'earth' as it were.

[…four-three-two-one…] – each second that passed, the push became just that much heavier against the ship. The ship's insides were protected somehow – 'a gyroscope system of some kind,' I hazarded a guess, my mind running a mile a minute as I drew on recovered memory and knowledge, 'or some counter counter-spin device acting against the push of the planet.'

The persistent layer of alkaline cloud faded, obscuring the beyond no more, to reveal the black of space that loomed ahead like a massive all-encompassing maw.

[…zero…] – the ship broke free and I felt the ship lurch once more as it came to an abrupt stop, going no further than the planet's orbit where I assumed we'd be protected from the radiation of the local star wherever it was.

[…hang on Guardian. Plotting course for stray-data coordinates…] – Einstein said, never once turning away from his station manning the ship. I was left in the seat to recover from the effects of planetary exit, with nothing to do but marvel at the sight of space and the planet below from above.

The planet below which became just that bit more interesting seen from above.

"…w-we were on a gas giant!" I exclaimed, more excited about the fact than I was surprised or shocked by it.

From above, the planet's profile contradicted my… admittedly narrow view of it from the ground. I'd expected to see a red planet, like the Mercury from memory or… Mars – another red planet from memory. Instead, it looked to have been largely composed of bluish-green acid oceans that took up more than… from a glance, about 98% of its surface… with the remaining two percent being small patches of landmass that, somehow, impossibly remained relatively untouched by the hostile elements, forming into little biomes. Each one unique from the other, with different conditions, colorations and… ecologies.

Near the north pole of the planet, I found the particular biome we'd just left – encapsulated within a breathable violet dome of oxygen, buffered by an unknown gas. The little – not so little actually, just looked the part in contrast to everything else on the gas-giant -biome was surrounded by more than a dozen storms, each one large enough to be visible from outer space.

It was the stuff of nightmare. To think, there was vegetation growing there, only made the planet stranger.

On a terrestrial planet, a storm the size of a city would be called a supercell. I wondered then, what one would call a cluster of continent-sized storms… made of acid rain, razor-sharp rust fall and whipping iron sand. Super-mega-cells maybe.

…all that accounted for, storms and all, the north pole was still the calmest biome on the planet – somehow.

Waves the size of the planet's smallest moon rose in a distant sea and crashed listlessly as they waned. The ripples they formed washed over the Biome nearest the center of the planet, submerging it entirely while swallowing others whole, yet leaving both intact but shattering others, only to reform similar formations elsewhere from the pieces of the broken.

I was for the second time, humbled.

I fiddled with the ship's sensorial – the controls were somewhat intuitive and my time in the workshop hadn't been spent panicking over my undeath. Einstein took over sometime halfway and redirected me to the atmospheric and ground reports after noticing the trend in my fumbling.

With silent thanks, I read the values on-screen and balked.

"Oh shit!" In the confusing mess of numbers and arbitrary walls of text, I found a gravitational-binding-energy value.

It brought to attention the moons.

One of them, the smallest moon namely, was only months away from impacting the planet – and if the numbers were to be believed, it would do so with enough energy to quite literally shatter the celestial body.

"…no wonder you were so eager to leave the planet," I remarked.

[…the planet blowing up would have been the least of our worries…] – Einstein supplied. His tone far too nonchalant, -[…our arrival was fortunate enough to have occurred close to the two-hour window of clear skies that allowed our escape. Any later and we would have been stuck planet-side for decades waiting for the storm to subside…]

"Decades?" In my shock, I nearly shouted.

I had trouble trying to imagine a storm – dust or otherwise - bad enough to ground a space-faring ship for so long.

[…If the ship's sensorial is to be trusted, there was a two-hour window of clear skies that occurs once every couple... decades and we were lucky enough to catch it…]

At my confusion, he elaborated -[…it's a gas giant Guardian. Storms on gas-giants tend to persist for centuries. Millennia sometimes if they're large enough…]

"…huh," I exclaimed, "you learn something new every day I suppose."

Suddenly his haste to leave made even more sense.

[…regardless, brace yourself. I just finished plotting our course. The signal's source is surprisingly not too far from here. It's just on the outer rim of the system…] – he said, flying out of his caddy and near my chest where he then fell and took a rest in my lap.

I did as he said, and pushed myself back against the seat once more, bracing myself for the sudden lurch forward the ship fell into as it sped away.

The local star, hidden behind the gas-giant, peeked from the northern hemisphere of the planet below as the ship engaged its deep-space engine. I only caught a sliver of burning red – a red-dwarf - peaking just slightly over the planet's curvature, before everything outside the cockpit turned to white blurs and rainbow-like streaks.

Just as quickly as it happened, the white streaks faded, and the scenery changed with a burst of color. The ship came to a sudden stop.

My stomach danced, and I fell into a crouch atop the seat, my hands cradling my belly all the while as I nursed the worst case of vertigo I've ever suffered in this new life… likely my old one too.

I groaned pitifully and shot a baleful glare at the amused looking ghost, whose demeanor – if such a thing could be applied to a fist-sized drone – changed.

[…oh…] – he exclaimed, his voice snapping me back to reality from my suffering, tone expressing surprise at whatever laid ahead.

[…we are definitely not in our home dimension…] – he said, his eye/core fixed ahead, prompting me to look up and out the ship.

I turned, glanced out the window, and gasped.

Ahead, in the dark of space, laid a graveyard of ships. A decimated armada that numbered in the hundred-thousand made up of fighter crafts mostly, and a few carriers – the fighters were about five times smaller than Einstein's ship and the carriers large enough to fit a hundred fighters at once. They were, all of them, shaped to the likeness of a six-pronged star, colored blue and gold with clear viewports at the front.

I looked closer and noticed a trend. A most worrying trend. Namely, the method of destruction. Einstein had too, and had, at my prompting, pulled up a monitor for closer observation.

Each fighter-ship had been struck so methodically. Every single one had had its viewport 'pierced' - not broken or shattered as all glass wont to do - but pierced by strange and impossibly accurate weaponry so as to kill the pilot in the most efficient manner possible.

The remnants drifted off in the vacuum of space lifelessly, their hulls still burning from a very recent skirmish.

Whoever, or whatever had attacked this fleet had been thorough. It was… a little impressive, actually and I found myself wondering - perhaps a little darkly - what kind of weapon was capable of so much whole-sale genocide with such precision.

At the helm of the fleet - previously stationed at the back of said fleet - was a dreadnought, the mothership as it were. It was unlike anything else. Made of a material that looked to be solid-gold, glimmering even in the dark of space, top to bottom, with a thousand black dots lining either side… windows most likely, or venting ports. It was shaped much like the little fighter ships, except on a much larger scale.

The design wasn't very ergonomic, but then again… it was a space-faring vehicle. Aerodynamics do stop applying when there's no atmospheric resistance to be had.

Looking closer, purple fire burned from within, slowly disintegrating the mother-ship bit by bit.

"What do you think happened here?" I asked the ghost beside me, who looked at the scenery with a… slowly dawning look of horror.

[…I-it's Oryx all over again…] – Einstein ignored me and muttered to himself, shaking, his eye/core facing the capital ship at the back.

"Who?"

The ghost shot from his caddy, turned to me sharply and paused – likely considering his words – then replied with measured words as he turned away from me, all focus on a monitor to my far-front – […a story for another time. I'm receiving a strange signal Guardian, hang on…]

I sat up from my seat, leaning in to better see the monitor he had turned his attention to. The screen glitched, turning black once then back on again. A jumbled mess of strange letters filled the monitor, falling like green text, followed by an even stranger set of symbols… numbers I thought, recognizing the pattern and… a sort of rhythm to the numbers.

"What is it?"

[…a distress call… I think…]

"A distress call?" I repeated, surprised.

I hadn't expected there to be any survivors. At all.

…although, given the size of the fleet, I shouldn't have been as surprised. Statistics dictate that at the very least a few of its pilots…people… whoever or whatever had been manning them, should have survived. I had simply ruled out the possibility due to the nature of the weapon implemented.

…Its sheer thoroughness and method of destruction. It was the perfect weapon. To leave a survivor… not unlikely, simply a near impossibility unless…

…unless it was intentional. Whoever had done this wanted a survivor.

[…Its an audio file format, unlike anything I've ever seen. I can barely interact with it…]

"Can you play it?" I asked.

[…I can, but we won't understand it…] – he paused, shining his light on the monitor with more intensity, then continued, […at least not until I've translated the language to something coherent…]

"How long will that take?"

[…Not long actually…] he shifted and turned, rotating his component bits as he interacted with the distress signal, scanning its contents and going through the jumbled mess with increasing fervor, […The language is surprisingly intuitive. I already have a few words translated to Earth-Basic – like Nova, Star, and Queen. It's very fascinating…]

Silently, I agreed with him. I imagined it to be – it wasn't the prospect of learning alien languages that excited me, rather, the doors communication would open… doors that led to technology and knowledge.

"Do you need to be here for that… in the ship I mean?"

[…Not really…] – Einstein replied, then turned and cast a curious gaze on me, […why do you ask?...]

"Do you know where the signal is coming from?"

[…one of the bigger ships near the capital Ketch…] – he answered, hesitantly, […it's a carrier of some sort…]

He brought up a monitor with a screen-cap of the wreckage. There was a spot of red near the center, highlighting the ship in question – it was one of the less damaged ships, with its internal lights still functioning.

"I want to board the ship and look for any survivors. Someone had to have sent the signal, right?" I reasoned.

[…something Guardian. Something did send the signal. Not human, not exo, not awoken…] – he paused, and grumbled to himself in a tone that expressed his 'disgust' speaking – […not hive, fallen, or cabal either. Something…unknown to me. Alien. Potentially hostile alien…]

The tone he spoke of the latter three was nothing if not indicative of his attitude towards them.

[…'It' might not even be alive anymore. Are you sure you want to do that?] Einstein asked, hovering inches from my face as he spoke, his shell turning sharply with each sentence.

'Alien.' Thinking of it, the concept felt… novel to my newly risen self. Not quite as impactful as I felt it should have been. The feeling of newness I expected was muted. Everything was new to me. As far as I was concerned, this was just one more alien thing to add to my list of alien things… Einstein being number one on that list.

I pushed him away, and replied, "I do. It's less a matter of finding someone – though if that does happen it happens, we establish contact, and go from there - the most important thing is finding where those ships came from."

[…trace our way to civilization…] – he trailed, connecting the dots.

I snapped a finger and shot him a grin in affirmation, "exactly."

[…smart of you, and pragmatic…] – he approved, then added, reluctantly, […fine, we'll board the ship, but I'm not letting you go wearing spare robes and unarmed. Wait a few and I'll have a proper outfitting for you fabricated and some basic armaments – just need to find a spot…]

The ship stirred, moving back and away from the wreckage. There were no celestial bodies nearby to orbit, but there was plenty of debris to hide behind and hitch on to conserve fuel instead of remaining stationary in the dead of space, inside a recent war-zone.

It took a while, but Einstein found what looked to have been a blast door – a large sheet of dense bronze metal drifting lightly near the capital ship – and landed on one side of it, killed the engine and detached from his caddy and led me to the armory.

[…earlier, when I mentioned the possibility of your past-self dying on a battlefield…] – he started, rather bluntly as the armory door pulled open unbidden, […you refuted and said that you might be able to design a weapon…]

"I did," I replied, following the ghost, heading towards the far end of the room with the machine station connected to the cache of glowing cubes.

[…This world is not without its dangers it seems and that skill of yours… it'll serve us well. If you really want to board that ship, then I'll have to implore you to use that skill to arm yourself… but first, I'll have to teach you the basics of using a glimmer-fab…]

A strange name for a machine I thought. It was, as the name implied, a fabricator of some sort – not unlike a three-D printer, just several centuries… or millennia head - with the distinct input-monitor on one side and the print-head module inside the machine. It was a solid design, and I couldn't have built something similar better myself. The only glaring issue I had was the material used to fabricate – there were no metal spools or filament attached to the machine, just the cache of blue cubes.

The blue cubes. There was a lot of those thing in the ship, now that I thought of it – in fact, most of the cargo bay was filled with them.

"…glimmer…," I mused to myself, then asked, "what's glimmer Einstein?"

[…Glimmer is in short Programmable Matter…] he replied.

"Programmable matter?" I repeated, just to be sure I hadn't misheard.

His eye cracked wide open, and his component bits flared as he answered – […programmable matter Guardian, and that it entails…]

Questions flowed to my mind in waves. I wanted to ask how one goes about programming matter. To take the essence of everything, then force… no, convince it to assume a form different from its intended shape. Forget nanotechnology, who needs it when you can operate near the quantum level, affecting energy and atoms directly and molding them like clay.

That wasn't science, nor magic – it was the realm of divinity. Creation itself.

…and he talked of with such nonchalance, like it was an everyday part of life to him.

Was this one of the technologies gifted to humanity by the traveler?

No doubt, there were limits to this technology. There had to be. It was too good to be true. Even neutered, It was still a miraculous piece of technology.

He was showing off, I could just tell... the smug little thing. I didn't want to humor him, but the prospect of programmable-matter was such a shock to my brain that I couldn't hold my excitement. Really, why would I hold myself back when we had a ship full of the stuff.

"Show me," I demanded, my reflection on the monitor showing my eyes glowing a burning-orange from excitement with a wicked grin.

The ghost disappeared in a flash of dull blue into the machine, which powered up slowly then blinked 'on' with blue lights followed by zipping noises as the fabricator print-head activated, running a few motion-tests then came to a rest, standing-by for further input.

A monitor popped out, followed by a prompt.

Einstein returned with another flash, popping out of the fabricator like the ghost that he was, and hovered to just above my shoulder.

[…right, let's begin. What's your preference? I have a few blueprints stored for Rifles, shotguns, swords, hand cannons... take your pick…]

I had a better idea. I trusted my gut feeling and reached into the breast pocket of my robes, and pulled out the micro-chip. I held it towards the ghost who inspected it with a curious glance. He scanned the chip, and after a brief moment, I heard him gasp...

[…that works too…]


End file.
